


The Fabric of Time and Space

by toesohnoes



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:11:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor discovers that River has a tattoo on her shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fabric of Time and Space

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of [Five Acts](http://toestastegood.livejournal.com/598881.html).

She drops her clothes to go swimming in the steaming pink lakes of Swanas, peeking over her shoulder at him as her gown drops to the ground.

And the Doctor had been planning on looking at the sand, because it is very interesting sand, but there's a TARDIS-blue tattoo on River's shoulder-blades that is far more interesting than diamond-bright sand. It's like a curling snake or the tongue of a great dragon, except it's really nothing like that at all. Curling tendrils of colour caress her spine and the nape of her neck.

"Your tattoo," he says, as she wades deeper into the water. "It wasn't there the last time I saw you."

"Spoilers, Doctor," River warns him, with a deep twist of amusement.

"You say that too much," the Doctor says, as he kicks off his shoes and shimmies inelegantly out of his trousers in order to join her in the water. "Not everything's a spoiler."

"And that's where you're wrong," she says. "You told me that."

"I'll tell you no such thing," he objects, sloshing into the water. The warmth embraces his ankles and he follows her deeper, as helpless as a pirate chasing a siren. "In fact, I'll tell you the opposite. I'll tell you to tell me everything."

"No, you don't," she says.

Tenses are difficult things when you're travelling in opposite directions. He frowns at her and leans down to study the work on her shoulders. Obligingly, she reaches up to move her hair out of the way and leave the ink exposed to his gaze.

"How did you get this ink?" he asks. "What _is_ it?"

It's nothing he's ever seen before. He can feel it pulsing like time and space itself, but River does nothing more than chuckle. "You can touch it, if you'd like," she offers, in a way that implies she knows exactly how much he'd like to do so.

His fingers reach out to skim over the ink, feeling the heat of her body. He follows the licking tendrils over her shoulders and up to the base of her neck, in swirls and loops of decoration. "I can feel it," he says. "It's like the eighteenth century."

"Feel lower," she advises, and his fingers dance down and to the left, finding something like the medieval period in a spiral and then the Ancient Greeks on another licking flame.

She reaches back to take his hand and pushes it down beneath the water. They're leaving the tattoo behind now, but she plants his hand onto her buttock and leans back against his chest. The tails of his shirt are wet in the lake, but he hasn't noticed, cannot care. "I didn't mean lower on the tattoo," she says.

As it turns out, there are lots of fascinating bits on River's body. Not all of them involve ink.


End file.
